Tuesday, 16 March 2010

Author Appreciation Week - Elizabeth Scott / Melina Marchetta

Author Appreciation Week was created by the fantastic, Heidi R. Kling, author of the upcoming Sea. Author Appreciation Week runs from March 15-19, and anyone can post about authors they wish to share their appreciation of.

I want to tell you about two authors who have really influenced me ...The first being Elizabeth Scott, mastermind behind Something, Maybe, Stealing Heaven, Bloom, The Unwritten Rule, Living Dead Girl and Love You Hate You Miss You.

Why?

Her books traverse genres and demonstrate her range, whether sweet romances, dark and twisty introspection or frightfully depressing and shocking.

Her blog is unique. She's about sharing knowledge, not just her own but those with perspectives in other fields of publishing.

Her contests rule...a lot.

She promotes herself in a way that generates discussion, encourages sharing a love of reading or just plonks awesome book prizes into the mix. She's no publicity whore, she wants to share the love.

Her author picture...it's my favourite of any author. Like I have said many times, every time I see that beaming smile, significant hair and dog, I smile.

She's exactly as she appears...what you see is what you get.

Also, I think she should be much bigger in publishing than she is. With such a consistently strong catalogue of work, her fan base should be monumental.

My second author will not surprise you....

Melina Marchetta.

As an Aussie and as a fan girl is behooves me to say something about this lady.

Why she's worthy of admiration?

She continues to challenge herself with her writing. From the simplistic plotting of Looking for Alibrandi and Saving Francesca, she dove head long into the beautiful chaos that is Jellicoe Road. Her next project involved world building within the fantasy genre (Finnikin of the Rock) and her latest sees a sequel that isn't exactly a sequel (The Piper's Son).

She's a pocket rocket full of kindness, humour and great interest in her audience.

She diversifies into film. Marchetta wrote the screenplay for the 2000 adaptation of Looking for Alibrandi and is currently working on the Jellicoe Road screenplay.

I can re-read her work and always find something new or gain an understanding of something I hadn't contemplated before.

Listen to her Printz acceptance speech and you'll be in love too.

She created Jonah Griggs.

She name dropped CJ Cregg in The Piper's Son...that's worthy of admiration right there. (If you don't know who CJ Cregg is then shame on YOU.)

She was an English teacher until recently and had to teach her own novel (Looking for Alibrandi) once it made the state syllabus. Wouldn't you love to be in that class?

Follow this link should you like to view some grainy video (but great audio) from The Piper's Son Sydney launch and YA author, William Kostakis' recollections of the woman.